A53688:1619
The Doctrine of the Saints' Perseverance
The doctrine of the saints perseverance, explained and confirmed, or, The certain permanency of their 1. acceptation with God & 2. sanctification from God manifested & proved from the 1. eternal principles 2. effectual causes 3. external means thereof ... vindicated in a full answer to the discourse of Mr. John Goodwin against it, in his book entitled Redemption redeemed : with some digressions concerning 1. the immediate effects of the death of Christ ... : with a discourse touching the epistles of Ignatius, the Episcopacy in them asserted, and some animadversions on Dr. H.H. his dissertations on that subject / by John Owen ...The doctrine of the saints perseverance, explained and confirmed, or, The certain permanency of their 1. acceptation with God & 2. sanctification from God manifested & proved from the 1. eternal principles 2. effectuall causes 3. externall meanes thereof ... vindicated in a full answer to the discourse of Mr. John Goodwin against it, in his book entituled Redemption redeemed : with some degressions concerning 1. the immediate effects of the death of Christ ... : with a discourse touching the epistles of Ignatius, the Episcopacy in them asserted, and some animadversions on Dr. H.H. his dissertations on that subject / by John Owen ...
London: printed by Leon. Lichfield, 1654
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The close of all is a concession of the Contra-Remonstrants at the Hague Conference; 1That Believers might fall into such sins, as that the Church according to the Commandment of Christ, must pronounce that they shall no longer abide in her communion, and that they shall have no part in the Kingdom of Christ; which being usually made an argument for the Apostasy of the Saints, I shall consider how it is here improved by M. Goodwin.
The close of all is a concession of the Contra-Remonstrants at the Hague Conference; 1That Believers might fall into such sinnes, as that the Church according to the Commandement of Christ, must pronounce that they shall no longer abide in her communion, and that they shall have no part in the Kingdome of Christ; which being usually made an argument for the Apostacy of the Saints, I shall consider how it is here improved by M. Goodwin.
- 1§. 38.
Certainly (saith he) their sense was, That true believers may sin, above the rate of those, who sin out of infirmity, in so much as there is no commandment of Christ, that any Church of his should eject such persons out of their Communion, who sin out of infirmity only; so that by the confession of our Adversaries themselves, even true Believers may perpetrate such sins, which are of a deeper demerit, than to be numbered amongst sins of infirmity, yea such sins, for which the Church of Christ, according to the Commandment of Christ, stands bound to ⟨p. 349⟩judge them for ever excluded from the Kingdom of God without repentance; from whence it undeniably follows, that they may commit such sins, whereby their Faith in Christ will be totally lost, because there is no condemnation unto those that are by Faith in Jesus Christ, whether they repent or not, and therefore they that stand in need of Repentance, to give them a right and title to the kingdom of God, are no sons of God by Faith; for were they sons, they would be heirs also, and consequently have right and title to the inheritance; so that to pretend that howsoever the Saints may fall into great and grievous sins, yet they shall certainly be renewed again by Repentance before they dye, though this be an assertion without any bottom on Reason or Truth, yet doth it no ways oppose, but suppose rather a possibility of the total defection of Faith in true Believers.